The criminal investigation into former world athletics chief Lamine Diack could see athletes from beyond the borders of Russia implicated in the cover-up of drugs tests, a leading official in the sport has told Sportsmail.

On Thursday, reports in France returned to an allegation made originally by the German broadcaster ARD last December that money extorted from athletes to protect them from exposure as cheats was laundered through a company in Singapore with links to Diack's family.

The independent World Anti-Doping Agency commission, which has been headed by WADA founder Dick Pound and will present its report in Geneva on Monday, was limited only to allegations of possible complicity of the IAAF with athletes in Russia.

Former IAAF president Lamine Diack is under investigation over corruption linked to covering up doping

Diack is pictured with his successor as IAAF president, Lord Sebastian Coe (left), in Berlin in 2009

But athletics chiefs are bracing themselves for the possibility that the French police investigation into former IAAF president Diack and two other senior officials goes way beyond that. As one leading source told Sportsmail: 'If this has been an effective criminal operation to run this kind of scam, as is being alleged, you have to believe it's a possibility that it will lead beyond athletes from Russia.'

The report published on Thursday by Lyon Capitale — a magazine based in the French city where the international police organisation Interpol has its headquarters — claimed that Turkish middle- distance runner Asli Cakir Alptekin was also a target for blackmail.

Alptekin won gold in the 1500m at the London Olympics only to then be hit with an eight-year ban for doping in July 2015. She was stripped of her Olympic title.

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Lyon Capitale claims Diack's sons, former IAAF marketing chief Papa Massata and Khalil, requested £350,000 from Alptekin in November 2012. Only after refusing to pay, claims the magazine, was she exposed as a cheat.

Earlier this week it emerged that Diack, former IAAF anti-doping chief Gabriel Dolle and former IAAF legal adviser Habib Cisse were under investigation amid allegations that they received payments in excess of £600,000 to cover up positive drugs tests of Russian athletes.

It emerged on Thursday that the IAAF, perhaps sensibly under the guidance of new president Lord Coe, have responded to the worst crisis in athletics history by cancelling their lavish annual gala in Monaco later this month.

A report published by Lyon Capitale claims that Asli Cakir Alptekin (right) was a target for blackmail

And it was perhaps just as well when five more Russian athletes were banned for drugs offences.

The suspensions were announced by the under-fire Russian Athletics Federation, with a statement confirming that three athletes had been banned as a result of information received from the Russian anti-doping agency.

The other two were disqualified on the basis of the documents received from the IAAF.

Mariya Konovalova, who finished second at the Chicago Marathon in 2010, has been banned for two years for irregularities in her biological passport, while Olympic hammer thrower Mariya Bespalova, has been hit with a four-year suspension after testing positive for a steroid.

Middle-distance runner Vlas Bredikhin and Yaroslav Kholopov, a 400m runner, were also banned for four years, with race walker Yevgeny Nushtayev getting a six-month suspension.

Hammer thrower Mariya Bespalova, pictured at the 2012 Olympics, is one of five Russians to be banned

Mariya Konovalova, pictured during a marathon in Japan in 2009, has been hit with a two-year suspension

On Thursday, Britain's double Olympic decathlon champion Daley Thompson called for prison sentences for the IAAF officials if the allegations are proven.

He also said it was 'worse than anything Sepp Blatter has done at FIFA'.

Speaking on talkSPORT, Thompson said: 'We said when Seb Coe took over the IAAF that the first 100 days would define his tenure.

'And these latest developments, if they are true... I don't think anything much worse could happen to the sport than for the former president to have colluded with the Russian federation over doping tests.

Double Olympic decathlon champion Daley Thompson has called for prison sentences for those found guilty

'This to my mind is a 10 or 11 on the Lance Armstrong scale. This is much worse than what Sepp Blatter has been doing (at FIFA).

'When somebody is in charge of the sport and is protecting and profiteering from cheating, then I don't think it could be any lower. You might think I'm going over the top, but nothing could be worse than this.

'He has undermined the very premise that sport is built on, and that's a level playing field.

'All those people out there who have lost medals and funding, and just pure enjoyment, and all the spectators that have been fooled, it's been such a dereliction of duty.